


Perspective

by tanyart



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Glasses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/pseuds/tanyart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A room filled with lost things.  Among them, glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> Trade with [Amei](http://seventypercentethanol.tumblr.com/)! The theme was glasses. Check out her lovely half [here](http://seventypercentethanol.tumblr.com/post/59939129122)!
> 
>  
> 
> And also a million thank yous to [DJ](http://desultoryjester.tumblr.com) for the beta. ;u;

It isn’t ever hard to find Eren during the Scouting Legion’s downtime.  All Jean needs to do is find the one squad cleaning the entire headquarters per Captain Levi’s orders, and Eren is no doubt scrubbing some dusty, abandoned room tucked away in the back corner of the building.  He knows exactly where to go, guided by precise and succinct directions the captain had given him, but after turning five corners and walking down four hallways with no Eren in sight, he begins to suspect that he may have missed the right room.

Backtracking twice confirms that he isn’t lost after all, but he still would’ve completely passed by Eren if it hadn’t been for a half-shouted “ _hey_ ” as they almost bump into each other.

And it isn’t Jean’s fault for not recognizing him.  He halts in midstep and turns to give Eren an assessing look.  He pauses.

A part of him doesn’t want to ask, because he thinks Eren is baiting him as usual, but this time around Jean finds himself more intrigued than annoyed.

“Alright,” he says, crossing his arms.  “Why the glasses?” He knows that Eren has never worn them before and would most likely never _need_ them.  Jean is pretty sure Eren could grow himself a new pair of eyeballs if he wanted to anyway.

Eren peers over the top of the frames like he’s been wearing glasses all his life.  “Hanji plucked out my eyes to see if they could regenerate.”

Jean is sure Eren had plucked that bit of black humor from Hanji too.

“You’re lying,” he says on impulse, persuaded by the way Eren is grinning at him.  Besides, Hanji doesn’t strike him as the kind of person to subject Eren to painful experiments.  Freakishly enthusiastic, yes.  Needlessly cruel? No.  “Where did you steal those from?”

“I found them.”  Eren even hitches up the glasses, a quick flick of his finger over his nose before he reaches for Jean’s hand.  He pulls once, and Jean’s folded arms fall to their sides.  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Jean follows him down the hallway.  Their hands swinging between them forces Jean to match strides and glance at Eren’s profile.  The glasses don’t even make Eren look any better or worse—just different, like how it sits on his face and frames his eyes in a new way, how the tips curve over Eren’s ears and poke through his hair.  The color of the glasses doesn’t even matter at this point, but Jean is vaguely reminded of dark mahogany wood, and he’s starting to notice how infuriatingly well shades of deep brown match with bright green eyes.

Eren leads him into a large room, and it’s almost like stepping into an attic, filled with cluttered furniture and stacks of crates.  Jean expects dust floating in beams of sunlight, but the air smells clean and the tall window pane is clear and spotless with its curtains pushed to the side.  Despite the mess, the room looks to be an office in disuse.  Jean imagines it had been made for some old, lofty commander, during a time when there hadn’t been a war to fight, or the desire to venture outside the walls.  He spies Eren’s coat hanging from the back of a chair, along with a bucket full of cleaning rags.

“Captain Levi does like to keep you busy,” he muses, though he isn’t quite sympathetic enough to offer his help either.  He lets go of Eren’s hand to look around, touching the newly polished surface of a table.

“He’d clean the room himself if he could.”

“He’d clean the entire HQ.”

“The whole _city_.”

Before he laughs Jean glances behind him the same time Eren checks the window.  Unless Levi is purposefully looking to catch two soldiers slacking off, Jean doubts the captain has the leisure time to spare checking up on them.  He rests his hip against the table, curiously examining some of the crates.

“What’s all this stuff, anyway?” he asks, puzzled by the random assortment of items; he picks up a wood carving of a horse, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.  In the same box there are more wooden sculptures, some smooth and well crafted, and others that look like someone has carved using a dull knife.  Maybe even a part of blade.

The next box over is filled with, of all things, keys of every shape and size.

Jean takes in the room again.  It’s not… storage.  None of the items appear ready to be packed and hidden away, more laid out to be seen and rifled through, hence the _mess_.  It hits him suddenly, and he straightens when he finally understands.

“Lost and found,” Eren replies, though he seems to disagree with his own answer. “The captain wanted me to organize the new stuff.”

Lost and found – which Jean realizes has to do less with being lost and more with soldiers never coming back to claim them.  A lot of the items are trinkets and small pieces that could easily slip from pockets, but there are also things that couldn’t possibly be lost or dropped –a jewelry box, a tall stack of wooden board games, an unfinished quilt hanging from a shelf.

“Wouldn’t the legion give these back to the families?” Jean stops when Eren looks up.  He glances away, frowning.  Of course, someone like Eren wouldn’t have a home to send his processions back to, and there are many soldiers that share a similar background with Eren, if not anything else about him.  It’s a challenge to own up to it, but Jean rallies himself and finishes evenly, “Or friends.  Maybe give them away.”

He can hear Eren rummaging at the other side of the room.

“Maybe no one wants something that belonged to someone who’s dead,” Eren says, dropping a few items into their rightful crates.  An inlaid knife, an embroidered handkerchief, a locket.  He picks his way back over to Jean.  “Besides, we don’t know what’s actually lost and what’s just… left.”

He stands in front of Jean.  Four pairs of glasses are hooked over the collar of his shirt, all different types of colors and rims.  Jean eyes them warily.

“What are you doing, starting a collection?  You don’t even need glasses.”

Eren snorts, holding them out.  “No.  But I was wondering how these would look on you.”

“I don’t need glasses either,” Jean says.  It seems wrong, trying on glasses that used to belong to people who are probably dead, but Eren has an expectant look and Jean is beginning to feel curious himself. With a huff, he picks the middle pair, one with blue frames and a solid weight.  He puts them on, recoiling when his vision turns sharp and the entire room seems to grow too tiny to see.

Eren laughs, leaning back.  “Makes your eyes look real small.”

“Yeah, because I’m squinting, you ass.  They hurt.”  Jean takes them off and sets them aside on the table, blinking.

“The lenses are too thick, I think.  Try this one.”  Eren pushes on the next pair before Jean can protest, one end almost poking up his nose.

He sees Eren smile before he shuts his eyes to block the distortions.  “This one’s _worse_ -“ and bats Eren’s hand away, refusing to try on any more.  “Stop, you’re going to poke my eye out or something!”

“Alright, alright.  But last one, I swear!”

Eren takes his own glasses off, catching Jean off guard.  It’s not as if he’s already gotten used to Eren wearing glasses, but they are in each other’s spaces now, and Eren is reaching over to slip them on and Jean can feel the warmth of the frames against his ears.  He doesn’t close his eyes, even when the glasses narrow his vision again, but this time it’s only a little and it’s tolerable because he’s not looking at anything else but Eren.

“I knew it,” Eren says, inspecting Jean from side to side. “You actually look smart now.”

Rolling his eyes, Jean shoves Eren away with one hand.  “You asshole,” he says, and starts to take the glasses off but Eren gets into his space again and there is already so little room to move without running into the crowded furniture and crates.

“It doesn’t hurt your eyes bad, does it?” Eren asks, holding the frames to Jean’s temple while Jean’s hands hover uselessly in the air.  His palm brushes against Jean’s cheek when Jean shakes his head.

“It’s not bad.” He clears his throat.  “Just uncomfortable.”

The corner of Eren’s mouth twitches. “It’s the same for me too.  That’s funny.  We can wear the same glasses.”

Jean scoffs.  There must be a box in the room where all the lost pairs of glasses are kept.  He can imagine Eren getting bored of cleaning, taking a quick break and trying on each pair to find one that fits closest to his vision.  Saying they can wear the same glasses – like having the same kind of sight or something – sounds a little ridiculous in Jean’s mind.  It makes him start to think about how other people see the world, how weird that it’s perfect through _these_ lenses for them when all it does for Jean is give him a headache.  

The glasses won’t help him, and it hadn’t seemed to help the person who wore them before either.

“Jean?  Look, if you disagree with me that much just say it.  You don’t have to make that stupid face.”

“I’m not making a face.”

Eren finally pulls the glasses off him and everything becomes clear again, right down to the brown flecks in Eren’s eyes and his insufferable grin.

“Yeah, you’re making it now,” he says, slipping the glasses back on like he’s grown fond of wearing them, or maybe he sees how Jean stares, “Like you’re disgusted with something- _mmph_.”

Jean admits he might have played into Eren's hands.  He can practically feel every inch of Eren's smirk against his mouth so he pushes off the table despite being close enough as it is.  Eren stumbles, feet shuffling over the old rug and bumping into table legs.

“Hey,” he growls, finding his balance by gripping onto Jean’s sleeves.  He leans forward, pressing his tongue between Jean’s lips. The rest of the kiss is rough, the rims of his glasses digging into their skin as he pushes against Jean.

It’s something of an unforeseen complication, along with Jean backing into a poorly positioned chair and completely losing his footing.  Years of wayward air maneuvers still doesn’t prepare him from landing backwards into one of the crates with a loud crash.  

“ _Shit!_ ”

He ends up more startled than hurt, breathless from both the fall and Eren’s doing.  Jean shifts, hearing the crunch of broken mementos and misplaced items, and somehow he upsets a stack of old journals and winces as they tumble into his lap.

“Jean!  You all right?”

Eren peers down at him, looking like he wants to laugh and doing a very bad job of trying to hold it back.  Jean groans, drumming his heels against the crate.  “This is _your_ fault.”

Eren lets out the laugh. “Get up, whiner.  You don’t belong in there.”

There is something to be said, sitting in a box filled with lost and abandoned things, but Jean can’t think of another complaint because behind them the glasses are laying forgotten on the floor, and Eren’s not looking at anything else but him.  

With a wry smile, he sits up and grabs Eren’s outstretched arm to be pulled back on his feet.

“Glad you found me.”


End file.
